On April 16th I wrote: It seems to me that there is a sort of ideological “singularity”, somewhere not far off in the distance, that we are accelerating toward. That singularity would represent the Omega point of the concurrent, onrushing streams of liberal opinion; it would be characterized by absolute non-discrimination, and rejection or elimination […]

The Boston bombings have set off a new round of security-tightening everywhere you look. When I went to the train station in Providence last week, I saw that passengers now have to present ID to well-armed police officers just to get to the platform; some had their bags searched. Sporting arenas are adding item after […]

The blogger ‘Ace of Spades’ has on his banner this quote from H. L. Mencken: Every normal man must be tempted at times to spit upon his hands, hoist the black flag, and begin slitting throats. Ace is whetting his blade today, I think, and not without good reason. Related content from Sphere

If you’ve ever wondered about just how subjective human notions of beauty really are (or aren’t), here’s an interesting item: Korean beauty-pageant contestants go for plastic surgery, and all end up with the same face. Related content from Sphere

Attention mass-immigration enthusiasts: this study from the Economic Policy Institute concludes that we already have more home-grown STEM graduates than we need. From the report’s summary: The immigration debate is complicated and polarizing, but the implications of the data for enacting high-skill guestworker policy are clear: Immigration policies that facilitate large flows of guestworkers will […]

Here’s a link to the latest report from the Congressional inquiry into the Benghazi fiasco and whitewash. A synopsis: EXECUTIVE SUMMARY An ongoing Congressional investigation across five House Committees concerning the events surrounding the September 11, 2012, terrorist attacks on U.S. facilities in Benghazi, Libya has made several determinations to date, including: — Reductions of […]

Well, it looks like our little website is now officially part of the reactionary Dark Enlightenment biosphere. (See here and here.) I’m waiting for my membership card in the mail, and the list of participating-vendor discounts. Related content from Sphere

Today at about 1:09 PM the stock market, which had been having a bullish, happy day, suddenly fell sharply. Why? Because the Associated Press had issued a Tweet saying that the White House had been bombed and the President injured. It immediately became obvious that the AP’s Twitter account had been hacked, and so the […]

Another sad loss: Christina Amphlett, the former lead singer and songwriter for the Australian band Divinyls, has died after a long struggle with cancer and MS. She had lived in New York for many years, and will be mourned by many, many of her friends here. Nina and I first got to know Chrissy way […]

Here’s a real corker from Walter Russell Mead, on the vanity and foolishness of Maureen Dowd. I used to enjoy Ms. Dowd’s columns, long ago; she writes well, with tartness and wit. Gradually the appeal faded. Call it an acquired distaste. Related content from Sphere

One of the stranger loose ends in the Boston bombing story is Abdul Rahman Ali Issa Al-Salimi Al-Harbi — the Saudi national, tackled at the scene, who became a “person of interest”. That “interest” quickly became apparent at the highest levels of government: President Obama and Secretary of State John Kerry had hasty closed-door meetings […]

Yesterday I wrote that gun-control advocates had lost in a “clean sweep” of Senate votes. That’s not quite true. One of the defeated proposals was a requirement that all states reciprocally honor concealed-carry permits. In a rare moment of agreement with Chuck Schumer, I think it’s good that this idea was voted down. It’s anti-federalist, […]

Well! I’ve been traveling all day, but having arrived in the outer Cape I see we extremists (being one of which, I have it on excellent authority, is under the circumstances no vice) made a clean sweep today in Washington. Most gratifying to win a battle every now and again. On to immigration “reform”! Related […]

Today we have an excellent piece by Charles C.W. Cooke on the abrogation, by gun-control partisans, of rational deliberation in favor of shameless appeals to emotion. (Mind you, the abrogation itself is very much the product of rational calculation; the politicians and pundits doing this are clearly aware that such vile mawkishness can be a […]

With bills addressing both issues making their way through Congress, here are two fine articles by Thomas Sowell: one on gun control, and the other on “immigration reform”. I wish Sowell weren’t quite so old; such clear thinkers are as valuable as they are rare. Related content from Sphere

Public opinion moves fast these days; stick your head out the Overton Window for a glimpse ahead, and you’re liable to get whacked in the back of the skull. A position that was publicly held by the President less than a year ago — a neutral position at that, namely mixed feelings about gay marriage […]

Nothing for tonight. I had a couple of things I wanted to post, but in the wake of the news from Boston neither politics nor blithe general-interest material seems appropriate. I was working today, and watching Twitter out of the corner of my eye; one got the sense that a great many people were just […]

Here’s more on the Gosnell case, if you can bear it, from Conor Friedersdorf. Here too is Andrew McCarthy on the too-familiar process by which dehumanization precedes atrocity. And here’s Roger Simon on the mainstream media’s discomfort with this story. Here’s a photo of the media area at the Philadelphia courthouse where the trial, of […]

Investor’s Business Daily’s editorial board comments here on the mainstream media’s non-coverage of the trial of the monstrous Kermit Gosnell, who ran an “abortion” abattoir in Philadelphia in which living infants were routinely and gruesomely murdered. A search just now on the New York Times website turned up exactly one article, from page 17 of […]

Having just got back from our trip, I’m still getting caught up on work, current events, email, and so on. It does seem that rather a lot has happened here in the States and around the world while we were gone, none of it particularly encouraging. Meanwhile, here are three pictures from China (click on […]

Having found a little free time and a stable Internet connection, I thought I’d give a little update: I’m sitting on the rooftop of an inn at the foot of the famous Moon Hill, a limestone arch just a few kilometers from the town of Yangshuo, in Guangxi province, China. Here’s the view from our […]